Marty, Jeff, and Andy have been playing together for 37 years. All 3 have been lifelong Beatle fans and have played their music for many many years. Dean Gleason is Jeff and Marty's younger cousin who also is a major Beatle fan.
In 2003 Norm Whitehurst (drummer for the Hipwaiters) won 2 tickets to go see Paul McCartney here in Portland Oregon. His first instinct was to call Marty who he knew would be the perfect person to invite to go with him. Of course Marty happily accepted the offer ! After Norm got off the phone it occurred to him that he neglected to think about another person who is a BIG Beatles fan....his MOM Gayle!!!
Marty offered to give up his ticket but Norm wouldn't renege on his offer so to make it up to his Mom he proposed an idea to Marty....let's put together an hour's worth of Beatle songs and play a surprise gig for my Mom ! Marty thought that was a great idea so he enlisted Jeff and Dean to play the other parts in the band. Now at this point Norm "liked and respected" the Beatles music but hadn't had much experience playing it. But once they picked out the tunes they wanted to play he studied like crazy and through that process became very proficient at re-creating Ringo's drum parts with great authenticity.
One thing that was tough was the fact that Marty and Jeff's lifelong pal and drummer Andy was also a Beatle fanatic and really already knew all of Ringos' parts. So we brought Andy in as a percussionist because the Beatle's music was full of great percussion parts that add so much to the songs. Over time not only has Andy accepted that role but he also sings, plays guitar and keyboards in the band!
We played that one surprise show at HINGS in Oregon City on a Sunday evening in late 2002. I think we did 2 sets and then had some other musicians come up and jam another set afterwards. It was so much fun and so successful that we did it again a few months later.
As time has gone on, the Dung Beatle shows have become so popular with our friends and fans and family that we are now doing a full 4 hour plus show on 2 consecutive weekends. Each night is literally sold out and we have been offered more money than we've ever made with any of our other bands to play shows in 2009 !!
We don't take ourselves too seriously but we do take the MUSIC very seriously. We try to recreate each individual part as closely as possible. No, we don't dress the part but the presentation is alot of fun and very rewarding musically.
So at the time of this writing (April 30th 2008) we are just starting rehearsals for our 4 night run at HINGS in June and it sounds great!
Hey guys, have a great weekend Doing the Dung thing! By the way Marty, how do you play guitar and sing while rolling on that dung ball? That's talent! Think of all the screaming girls!!! WooHoo! Rock on Brotha's! TroyDog
